Photographed By: Tyler Rose Ratzlaff

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Joseph Solimon ('13) looks to brings the ball down with an Oiler on his back.

With the academic semester drawing to a close on Friday, the Barons’ boys varsity soccer team took on the Huntington Beach Oilers last Friday, the 27th. The Barons were looking to put away the last place Oilers and keep their record pristine in the second half of season. The boys scored early in both halves and came away with a 2-0 victory to give the Barons momentum going into Edison next week.

With the cushion of the goal the Barons were more free to play their game and the Oilers known for their tenacity, were somewhat depleted in energy. Although the game proved to be a tough defensive battle all over the pitch, the Baron midfield and defense held strong and allowed no shots on goal during the first half.

Ethan Morrow ('12) stretches out to make a tackle against an Oiler defender.

Going into the second half still at 1-0 the Barons were much closer than they would like to be, “this team will not go away until you really put them under, we have to distance ourselves or else they stick around,” commented Smith at halftime. The Barons were able to achieve that goal early on in the half. After some offensive pressure by the Barons forced a corner kick, the cross from the set piece bobbled out to the top of the box. Garret Stiffler-Greasby (’13) pounced on the ball with a one-time shot that ricocheted off an Oiler defender and fooled the goalie who was diving the other way, as the ball bounced into the net.

With another early goal within the first 5 minutes of the half the Barons were again in a position to finish out the half with a small cushion, which had grown even larger. The game stayed more evenly played the rest of the half. Both sides saw chances but none were very threatening on either side. In the last 5 minutes the Barons withstood a more aggressive Oiler attack, but after some strong clearances and poor composure on HB’s part the Barons came away with a strong 2-0 victory.

Other results in Sunset did not help the Barons much, Marina made up for their stunning loss to HB last week with a 1-0 victory over Los Alamitos, and Edison is trying to make a last ditch effort to salvage their season beating Newport Harbour 2-1.

The Barons still sit atop the Sunset league, with the two lowest teams out of the way for the Barons, its all business now. With a remaining schedule of Edison away, Marina home, and Los Al away, the Barons will play 3 desperate and very competitive teams all looking to knock off FV. The road won’t be easy, but it never is for a Sunset League team.

The Barons next game is Wednesday the 1st at Edison, a true test for the Barons.

ASB held an “Alice’s Winterland” sports assembly on the 20th of January (even though the students’ planners state the assembly is in December). It featured all of FVHS’s winter sports team, the ASB committee, color-guard, dance team, and the cheer team.

ASB set the mood with something different, staging black lights and making student’s white clothes and smiles glow in the dark.

In my opinion, everything seemed to go smoothly until the pep rally. I felt that the pep rally was poorly executed, disorganized, and low in energy. There was some feedback from students saying that that assembly was exciting until it had which the pep rally, where they found it to be a bit confusing. Although it was a “sports’ pep rally,” ASB didn’t showcase the sports as other rallies have done.

It’s disappointing that there was little interaction with the teams. To be frank, the team cheers didn’t do much to help with the crowd intensity, previous years held the sports teams in competitions. Maybe it would have been better for the teams to dance instead of  ASB? The teams ran through a poster, huddled in a circle, and ran off the stage.  Andres Batta (’12) and Mason Clevenger (’12) closed the assembly with a cheer, but it seemed like it wasn’t enough to get the whole crowd pumped up.

During the first assembly, Mr. Fraser stepped in towards the end of the pep rally to get the crowd more involved. However, during the second assembly, there was a lack of energy and enthusiasm.  A failed t-shirt cannon stunt also didn’t help the overall success of the rally. After that, it was hard to get the crowd up and running when MC’s Batta and Clevenger tried to get the crowd energized.  Minh Le (’12), Assembly Director, stated that “The first assembly was a lot better than the second one. Mr. Fraser came in with the T-shirt cannon and got the crowded pumped up during the pep rally.”

Other parts of the assembly were actually very interesting. They had implemented a new lighting system with strobe lights  that added more flavor to the design of the play with the glow- in- the- dark after effects. In addition, Clevenger and Julie Ruck (’12) played their roles as Alice and the Mad Hatter to the point.

So on this note, ASB had just conducted a student survey earlier this week, asking the student body themselves what ASB can improve on for the next assemblies to come. After seeing this assembly and taking the student survey, the question that stands now is that ASB has an idea of what the students are looking for. Yet, are they going to accommodate those suggestions or will they continue to do what they like to see in the assemblies/rallies?

The storage room had various types of flowers and seeds in numerous quantities and colors. Among the most used on floats were the silver leaves and the carnations. The silver leaves has a very strenuous process to it. It was pealed, cut, then glued onto the floats and it wasn’t just a few leaves; almost about 1000 of these leaves were prepared for the floats. Carnations, although beautiful, were cut by the petal and used as flakes on the floats. Roses were cut drastically shorter at the stem and toothpicks were inserted into them. After this, they were poked into the floats at the color-coded areas. These were but the few types of plants used for the floats.

One of the hardest jobs was preparing platforms of flowers for the floats. This job is usually done by an assembly line method. One person would cut the thorns off the roses and cuts the stem shorter. The other would stick their hands in ice-cold water for beakers to insert the roses’ stems to keep them moisturized until after the parade. And the last person inserts the beaker into the styrofoam platform. Each platform can range from 225 to 1000 roses. That’s a lot!

Nevertheless, on January 2nd, whether you are out on Colorado Boulevard or at home on our couch watching the Rose Parade on KTLA 5, just remember that hundreds of people worked to keep this tradition thriving in America, specifically Southern California. Gallons and gallons of glue is used to stick seeds, petal flakes, flowers, plant material, and berries onto these floats. Brushes are always high in demand. The supply of flowers is limitless. The hours and energy put into each float is infinite. Be thankful for this when reflecting on the the 2011 year and look forward to the new year! Happy New Years!

The BBN during the filming of their annual Haunt Episode.

During their last episode, BBN announced that their news program is moving out of English class to third period SSR so that all students and teachers will see the BBN at the same time.

Today, that dreaded change begins.

When asked for reasons why this change was taking place, Mr. Herzfeld said,” It has been the intention of Baron Broadcast News since its inception to be a school-wide broadcast. Until recently, we have not had the infrastructures to make that happen effectively.”

Interesting, but honestly, students don’t care what BBN was supposed to be.  We were content with watching BBN during English class. We enjoyed the bi-weekly reprieve from the academic grind we’re subjecting ourselves to here at FVHS. But that break from our studies is another reason the BBN is being moved to SSR.

Herzfeld noted that English teachers have sacrificed instructional time for years, while other departments haven’t been asked to give up teaching time at all.  This poses as a concern to administration because English and writing scores are extremely important to school and student success.

Not everyone feels that time spent watching the BBN is a sacrifice of class time. Several students have reported that their English teachers use the BBN as content for class discussion, debates, argumentative writing among other learning activities. The BBN and teaching time do not have to be mutually exclusive. 

But some people think they are and so today, we’ll be watching the BBN during SSR. This leaves only 15 minutes for the episode. Students dread the possible loss of some of the creative and fun elements to BBN.  With the reduction in time, priority will likely be given to clips that are most relevant news-wise.  One thing that will certainly be absent are the end credits which are often the most creative and entertaining parts of the BBN (although some English teachers stop playing the BBN once it gets to that point). Hopefully the BBN will not remove skits such as Nasayugara and clips from the “Pho-nomenal Five” crew.

 Herzfeld also explained that BBN was initially designed as a network so that news could be broadcasted throughout the entire school at the same time.  He hoped that, “Down the road, we may be able to do a portion of the broadcasts live, which would give the BBN students a more realistic newscaster experience both on camera and behind the scenes.”

As optimistic and hopeful as this sound, with all the budget cuts happening around school and the money that would be need to be allocated to BBN to make a live broadcast possible, just doesn’t seem plausible at the moment.  Mr. Ziebarth, advisor to BBN, also agrees that “It’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

But, Mr. Herzfeld does make a point that it would be beneficial to BBN by exposing them to more realistic news casting, but it can still be felt that BBN won’t be the same due to their new time constraint.  BBN is more than a mere school broadcasting school network.  It’s a student outlet that lets students know what’s going on before, during, and after school hours.  It provides so much more than a regular broadcast.  It gives students more interest in school and leads them to be more active. It’s a program that pumps up school spirit by showing videos and clips of our hardworking ASB, our sports teams, our clubs, and many more.  

And a few weeks ago, a Facebook page was created in response to the move of BBN, although approximately 1,000 people have joined the cause, will it change anything? Only time will tell and today the clock starts ticking. 

FVHS photographer, Thomas Warloe ’13, captured the lunar eclipse from beginning to end Saturday morning from his yard in Fountain Valley.

Click here to see the full size image.

This issue was published on Monday, November 14th, 2011.

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Banner designed by Club Commissioner Ayah Bany-Mohammed ('12).

Every year I look forward to the first week of November, the much anticipated Bell Week. It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year. I love getting pumped up at the Pep Rally and I love seeing posters hung all over campus and the way they cover entire walls and even the ground. For the last three years, I have had the chance to work with the ASB and Senate in their efforts to prepare for Bell Week. I’m surprised at how much time they sacrifice to raise school spirit. What strikes me the most is the quality of the posters and how that quality has improved year after year.

During the summer students brainstorm poster ideas and begin designing them.  Many of the ASB officers put about thirty minutes or more into just a single poster. That requires dedication considering how they are obligated to basically draw 100 posters. The time they spend to put the posters up is even more astonishing. Having only Thursday night to hang up posters all over campus, our ASB and Senate works diligently and swiftly to assure that the school will be ready for the next morning when students walk through the gates.

In addition to their poster duties, ASB officers  were expected to attend the annual ASB Breakfast with the Chargers\’ ASB around 5:00 A.M. The hours of bedtime they sacrificed for just this week is unimaginable.

Mural completed by Spirit Commissioner Natalie Wilson ('12).

Some question whether the numerous amounts of posters are necessary every single year. The truth is yes. Yes, because it rallies up the school to defeat the Edison Chargers. Although we haven\’t won for the last seven years, our school still exerts pride and spirit at every Bell Game.

What about all those students who have worked so hard to make Bell Week happen? What everything really worth it?

Spirit Commissioner Jessica Hanson (\’13) thinks so. “In the end, it was all worth it. I believe the posters and the rally really got everyone pumped up for the game. I honestly never have seen our school as loud and together before of my three years in high school. It\’s really thrilling to see the crowd so stimulated.”

You don\’t see Edison or Marina High Schools rally up as much spirit as we have for football games. Everyone on campus from the student body to the administration has exemplified what it is to be a Baron through spirit and unity. We should be thanking ASB for all the countless hours they have spent to make Bell Week possible and the student body and staff for being so supportive. We are the mighty Barons!

3D Moviegoers

            A recent article published by the Los Angeles Times has announced the next step in film production: re-releasing in 3-D. Studios plan to take classics like Star Wars and Titanic and make 3-D movies out of them. Yes, 3-Dimensional films are the new medium and retain a huge following, but at what point do we draw the line? Just because 3-D is the new fad, are we going to convert every single movie ever made into this passing trend? I understand current pictures being filmed in 3-D, as it is the current technological breakthrough, but I see no point in even touching the old ones.

            The chief motivation behind this push is, of course, money. How could producers not jump at the opportunity of not creating a new movie, releasing the same old ones, and making even more money than they did years ago? It makes fiscal sense, but I feel as if it\’s just making them lazy. No new ideas, storylines, character, nothing; just the same old movies we loved decades ago.

            Although these re-releases rake in mounds of dough, the process of 3-D conversion is quite costly. For Titanic, Paramount Pictures and director James Cameron are going to spend $18 million on its 3-D-ification. But for Disney\’s The Lion King, only $10 million was spent on its conversion, yet it made over $30 million in one weekend. And due to software innovation, conversions are costing less and less.

            But as consumers, wouldn\’t you like to pay to see brand-new films? I know I won\’t see The Lion King in 3-D because I\’ve seen it a million times. In fact, many moviegoers haven\’t noticed much difference between the 3-D and 2-D versions of the film.  Not only that, but 3-D movies cost an extra few bucks. Yeah that makes sense, “I\’m going to pay more money so I can see a movie I\’ve been watching since I was a kid!” but in 3D.

            I feel as though these studios are not leaving well enough alone. Great movies can be appreciated for generations to come without being altered every step of the way. For all we know, 4-D technology could be just around the corner, then 5-D, and maybe 6-D (although I don\’t know what exactly they would entail). With technology improving every day, it would just be a waste of time and money to convert all the old classics into today\’s movie fad: 3-D.

            But that\’s only one gal\’s opinion, are you looking forward to the 3-D versions of classic films?

This is less than half the people that contributed to the Haunt

The annual Halloween Haunt, produced by BBN is a highly anticipated clip that students enjoy watching in their English classrooms. Although this year\’s Haunt featured new ideas and stood out from the attempts in previous years, the product fell short in terms of creativity.

The introduction opens with a light car ride down various roads and soft jazz music playing in the background. At first, it appears to be a buildup of suspense like the beginning of a classy Oscar-worthy film. The festive Halloween party environment and the flashbacks of character Forrest hint at a beneath-the-surface level of meaning. However, when zombies enter the scene, the downward spiral begins.

The zombie invasion had a shallow plot, essentially one big violent war scene with one character dying after another. The progression of violence was predictable with the linear story, and the humorous scenes only slightly made up for it. Mr. Pefferonis\’ heroic role was poorly played with a lack of emotion that did not fit in with the playful style of the others. A clichéd parting speech followed the death of every character. Without the occasional inserts of humor, the production would have completely fallen on its knees.

Fortunately, there was a deeper story unknown to most viewers. The making of the Haunt is, in fact, far more interesting than the Haunt itself. The Pho-Nomenal Five worked under conditions so stressful that even completing the production is a major accomplishment in itself. For the past few years, the Haunt has been an ambitious project requiring at least seven months of planning, filming, and editing. This year, they managed to do it in one.

“When I first took on this project, I thought it was fun, until halfway through,” said Vinh Vu (\’12), who spent countless sleepless nights editing the feature. On top of time constraints, the group dealt with a slew of retakes due to inconvenient scheduling, actor requirements, and weapon regulations.

“It was a special privilege to be able to work on the Haunt, even though it was our first year [in BBN]”, said Nathan Nguyen (\’12), a member of the Pho-Nomenal Five.

The 2011 BBN Halloween Haunt will forever go down in history as the product of countless hours of blood-sweat-tears, fake blood, and actual blood. No clock can measure the amount of sleep the editing crew lost in the making. Appreciate the Haunt for the story behind it and what the journey represents, not the quality of the production itself.